


(who) were run down by the drunken taxicab of absolute reality

by Wolvesandwerewolves



Series: I’m With You in Rockland [3]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Self Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, Mental Illness, Mental Instability, Schizophrenia, Schizophrenia/Schizoaffective Disorder, mental health, mentions of self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25760242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolvesandwerewolves/pseuds/Wolvesandwerewolves
Summary: Ben wishes it hadn’t taken death for him and Klaus to grow closer.He wishes he wasn’t dead.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves
Series: I’m With You in Rockland [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1865728
Comments: 11
Kudos: 214





	(who) were run down by the drunken taxicab of absolute reality

**Author's Note:**

> wow i’m just writing a new chapter like every night. Edit: also great news tonight I finished the outlines for the next like four chapters . and i think that should bring us up to canon. i think 
> 
> This fic is sponsored by my insomnia 
> 
> As always, please check the tags; and the title is yet another great line from Howl by Allen Ginsberg which I think everyone should read and I will not be shutting up about it anytime soon

Ben has been dead for almost three months now.

Every morning he goes to the kitchen at seven am and watches as Klaus and Vanya each take their own pills. There’s only two chairs, so he sits on top of the table in between bowls of cereal and scattered newspapers and homework assignments. Klaus is always to his left and Vanya is always to his right. 

Klaus likes Fruity Pebbles. Vanya likes Cheeri-o’s with sugar sprinkled on top. Sometimes, on the weekends when Vanya doesn’t have school, they’ll cook together in the mornings—blueberry muffins, or omelettes or French toast. 

They watch the news together and talk about current events or the weather. Sometimes they’ll hear about Luther and the crimes he’s stopped around the city, and they’ll wonder how he’s doing, or how Diego is doing, or how Alison is doing. They never call him or anyone else, and no one calls them, either.

Vanya tells Klaus how school is going, and she says things about the orchestra that Ben doesn’t really understand, but it makes his brother smile. She’s more confident when it’s just them, but sometimes she still seems so hesitant and unsure of herself. 

Ben wonders about the pills she takes, and about the pills Klaus takes. He wonders how different they would be if they hadn’t grown up under Dad’s control. But Klaus still thinks he’s nothing more than a hallucination, and Vanya shows no sign of being anything other than normal. He wishes he had noticed before he died or maybe cared to think of how odd it was they were both medicated and both powerless. 

Hindsight. 

They both have therapy sessions scribbled onto specific dates on the calendar hanging on the fridge. Ben usually goes to visit Luther and Diego on those days, even though they can’t see or hear him, like Klaus can. He usually tells him about the sessions afterwards, anyway, and anything else feels too much like an invasion of privacy.

Klaus tells him he hasn’t mentioned to his psychiatrist that he still sees Ben. He says it like a confession. And he doesn’t ask to be switched to new medication, even though he said he’s been having more ‘breakthrough symptoms’ lately. Ben doesn’t understand all of what he says, but so far he’s seen three other ghosts that he knows Klaus saw, too. And every time Ben says _I’m not a hallucination_ or _You’re not crazy_ or _Dad lied to you, Klaus,_ he sees his brother frown and look almost thoughtful for a few seconds before he changes the subject.

Ben hopes it’s progress.

The weather is starting to warm up. He can’t feel it, himself, but he notices when the sky is bluer, and the sun is brighter. Vanya begins to wear sweatshirts and tennis shoes to school every morning, instead of boots and a coat. Klaus’s outfits haven’t changed much, but he doesn’t bring his coat with him as often when he leaves the apartment every night. 

He manages a bar downtown, which is such a weird concept he has trouble grasping it. It should be simple, but he doesn’t think anything about Klaus is simple. He remembers when they were kids, hearing Vanya scream in the middle of the night and running to find her standing in the doorway to the bathroom. Klaus was on the floor, wearing one of her skirts and an oversized blouse he stole from Mom, unbuttoned all the way down. There was an almost empty bottle of whiskey in one hand, and next to it lay an open bottle of pills. His eyes were closed. 

He remembers sitting in the living room with all of his siblings, wearing his pajamas. The front door was open wide, and blue and red lights flashed through to shine on them. Vanya cried into Mom’s arms as they carried Klaus down on a stretcher, a mask over his face that fogged when he breathed. 

He didn’t see Klaus for a month after that. When he came back, he claimed he was clean and sober, save the pills Mom gave him every morning, locked up and regulated so he didn’t overdose again. And the whiskey Dad had kept in the minibar was moved to his office and locked up after that, too.

“Isn’t this triggering for you?” Ben asks, again. 

He asked Klaus the first night he followed him to the club, too. He’d been expecting his brother to walk through the doors and break his sobriety streak, but instead he’d unlocked the place with the keys strung around his neck on a rainbow lanyard. 

Klaus had laughed, rolled his eyes and ignored him. Ben left it be, afraid it might be a touchy subject, but so far Klaus has been incredibly open about himself and his mental health, so he asks again.

Klaus is taking a smoke break, now, leaning up against the brick wall in the alleyway, and they’re alone. It’s dark out, almost midnight, and they won’t close up and leave until two am. It’s raining out, and the small overhang they’re standing under helps, but there are small, speckled droplets on the shoulders of his brother’s bright orange shirt, and the front of his bangs drip water down his face like tears. 

Klaus smiles at him and shakes his head, blowing smoke at his face that passes right through him. 

“Oh, Ben,” he says, smiling. “I was never addicted to alcohol. I was addicted to drugs. The fun drugs.” He sighs, nostalgic, and then laughs again. “Turns out heroin doesn’t really help my psychosis. Neither does OxyContin. Or Ambien. Or—”

“I get it,” Ben interrupts, because he’s not really sure how long Klaus can go on about the drugs he used to take as a teenager, but he doesn’t really want to know, either. “So you’re totally clean.”

“Yep! Five years, now.” 

“I guess getting out of the house helped, then,” Ben says, doing the math in his head. “Getting away from Dad?”

“Yeah,” Klaus says, but this time he sounds a little sad about it. 

_Five years,_ Ben thinks. Come to think of it, it’s probably been about as long since he’s seen his brother. When he was alive, anyway. And he remembers Vanya, on the day of his own funeral, saying _It’s been years._ He doesn’t think anyone kept in touch with them once they moved out.

It doesn’t feel like five years to him.

He wonders if getting away from Dad was the only thing that helped Klaus stay clean. 

“I’m sorry we were such assholes growing up,” Ben admits, soft and uncomfortable. 

In the distance, thunder sounds. It’s starting to rain harder, now. He doesn’t know if the rain has made it cooler out, or just humid. 

Klaus frowns at him. He shrugs and doesn’t deny it. Ben wonders if it even means anything, coming from what Klaus thinks is a hallucination. “We were all kids.”

“Yeah,” Ben says, but it feels like an excuse. 

He thinks of how he’s spent every day since the funeral, hanging around Klaus and Vanya as they lived their own lives. As Vanya did homework, and played violin in the evenings when Klaus was getting ready for work. And how they eat breakfast together every morning, even though Klaus goes right back to bed afterwards. How they trade doing dishes, and laundry and how they take care of each other and themselves. 

How grown up they are. They’re twenty-two— and Ben still sometimes felt like a kid when he was alive. He hates to admit it, and hates Dad more every time he thinks of it, but Ben didn’t really know how to survive in the real world. Growing up, they learned how to apprehend criminals—and a lot of the time, Ben doing so involved the Horror, which always meant death and blood and nightmares. 

But he never learned how to apply for a job, or how to apply for school, or how to do anything. When he died, he was still living at home with Luther, even if he almost always refused to go on missions anymore. The only job he ever had was at a local bookstore he frequented enough to get on good terms with the owners. He didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life and now it doesn’t matter, because he doesn’t have one. 

And he doesn’t even remember how he died, either.

Sometimes he feels almost envious of Klaus and Vanya. Sometimes, he finds himself wanting to be normal, too. But they’re not normal—hell, Klaus probably isn’t even crazy. Maybe every hallucination he has is a ghost no one else can see or verify. Dad lied to them their entire lives and they don’t even know it.

But at least they know how to take care of themselves. At least they’re alive. 

Ben sighs. He holds his hand out, watches as rain passes right through his open palm. 

Klaus squashes the cigarette beneath his shoe. He sighs back. He does that a lot, mirrors Ben when he does things like sigh, or shrug or roll his eyes. He can’t remember if Klaus did it when he was alive, too, or if he’s just doing it because Ben is a ghost—a hallucination, to him. 

He doesn’t know, but somehow he likes it. He doesn’t know the why for that, either. 

“Come on,” Klaus says. He turns, opens the back door for the bar and steps through into the loud noise and bright flashing lights.

He holds the door open for Ben even though he can pass through it like the raindrops through his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh yeah also this is in Ben’s POV this time! yay! 
> 
> anyways, ben is trying but he’s still learning and there’s stuff he doesn’t understand. like calling klaus crazy—he doesn’t think he’s being mean. but it’s not the right term. and he thinks maybe klaus doesn’t have schizophrenia. boy is he in for a surprise. that’s next chapter tho or maybe it’s not idk
> 
> hopefully we’ll see more of Vanya here soon but like idk man. I come up with this shit the night before and hit post before i pass out haha anyways
> 
> cool thank you and goodnight i love you xoxo


End file.
